A Gentle AxeFresh off the case of a deranged student who murdered his landlady, noted police investigator Porfiry Petrovich barely takes a breath before a bizarre and very grisly double murder lands him back on the streets of the tsarist St. Petersburg he knows all too well. The sardonic sleuth follows a trail from the drinking dens of the Haymarket district to an altogether more genteel stratum of society a hunt that leads him to a conclusion even he will find

Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways

When another classmate disappears

police detectives and academics

Lady Vee would never desert a friend in need

Billy feels the touch of a withered hand on his cheek

A series of threats persuade these two that they will be best served quitting the mainland for a while and so they both find suitable excuses: Aristotle has to transport a sick student home to Rhodos

and a young cadet is found butchered in the streets of Istanbul

Bond teams up with CIA agent Cedar Leiter

empathy and drama by one of the world's master storytellers

pinned to her dress

Much of the drama created revolves not only around the scary sense of a killer prowling in the shadows but also around the manipulative games being played between the women in the office as they come under pressure and turn on each other

Dublin and halfway back across Africa